The Precipice

MESSAGES

George shooed everyone out of the mission control center, except for the chief who insisted hotly that the center must have at least one human controller on duty at all times.

If he’d been a man, George would have simply picked him I up and heaved him through the door out into the corridor. Instead, the chief on this shift was a rail-thin, pasty-faced, lank-haired woman with the personality of an Arkansas mule. She would not leave the center.

Restraining the urge to lift her off her feet and carry her out to the corridor, George pleaded, “I’ve got to send a private message to Dan Randolph. I can’t have anybody listenin’ in on it.”

“And why not?” she demanded, hands on hips, narrow nostrils flaring angrily. “None of your fookin’ business,” George snarled. “That’s why not.” For long moments they glared at each other, George towering over her, but the woman totally unfazed by him.

“It’s Dan’s own orders,” George said at last, stretching the truth a little. “This is ultra-sensitive stuff.”

The woman seemed to think that over for a second, then said more reasonably, “You take the console over there, on the end. I’ll set you up with a private channel. Nobody else in here but you and me, and I won’t eavesdrop. Okay?” George started to say no, but realized that this was the best he could accomplish, short of physical mayhem.

Before he could agree, though, Frank Blyleven pushed through the double doors, his normally smiling face wrinkled into a puzzled frown. “What’s going on here?” the security chief demanded, walking up the aisle between the consoles. “I got a report that you’re throwing controllers out of the center.” Heaving an impatient sigh, George explained all over again that he had to get a message through to Dan. “In private,” he said. “Nobody listenin’ in.” Blyleven crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look authoritative. It didn’t work. To George he looked like a red-faced shopping mall Santa in mufti. “Very well,” he said. “Send your message. I’ll sit by the corridor door and make certain nobody disturbs you.”

Surprised, George thanked him and headed for the console that the chief controller had indicated. Blyleven went to the last row of consoles and sat down at the one closest to the door. Surreptitiously, he tapped the keyboard a few times. When George finished his message and erased it from the comm system’s memory core, Blyleven had a copy that he could pawn to Humphries. Dan felt nervous as he watched Pancho and Amanda shut down the radiation shield. Dumping all that electromagnetic energy didn’t bother him; it was the idea that now they had no protection against another solar storm except the thin hull of the ship itself.

“… shutdown complete,” Pancho announced. “Magnetic field zeroed out.”

“Zero field,” Amanda confirmed.

“Naked to mine enemies,” Dan murmured.

“How’s that, boss?” Pancho asked, looking up over her shoulder toward him.

“I feel naked,” Dan said.

“Don’t worry. Sun looks calm enough for the time being. Even if it shoots out a flare, we can always get into our suits and go for a swim in one of the fuel tanks.”

“That wouldn’t be very helpful,” Amanda pointed out, not realizing that Pancho was joking. “The high-energy protons would set off all sorts of secondary particles from the fuel’s atoms.”

Pancho frowned at her. Amanda looked from her to Dan and then back to her control panel.

“I think I’ll go back and see how Lars is doing,” she said, getting up from her chair.

“Have fun,” Pancho said.

Dan watched her step through the hatch, then slid into her vacated chair. “Don’t look so glum, boss. We’re battin’ along at one-third g with no sweat. Be back in lunar orbit in less’n four days.”

“I had wanted to stop to sample those other two rocks,” Dan said.

“Can’t take the chance. Better to — hold on. Incoming message from Selene.

George Ambrose.”

“I’ll take it here,” said Dan. “By the way, have you told mission control that we’ve shut down the shield?”

“Not yet, but they’ll see it on the telemetering. It’s recorded automatically.” Dan nodded as George’s bushy red-maned face appeared on the screen. Quickly, in a worried whisper, George explained how he’d located Cardenas and spirited her off to the temporary shelter.

“She wants t’see Stavenger,” George concluded. “I told her I’d talk to you first. She’ll be perfectly okay in the tempo for a coupla weeks, if we need to keep her stashed there. So… what d’you want me to do, Dan?”

George’s image on the screen froze. Dan could see that he must have been at the mission control center when he’d sent the message. Good. He must’ve cleared out the place to make sure nobody could eavesdrop.

Now I’ve got to send him a reply that just about anybody can listen to, Dan thought. This is going to be like an old-time mafioso speaking into a tapped telephone.

“George, I think she’s right. Do as she asks… as carefully as you can. She’s important to us; there’s a lot she and I have to talk about when I get back. We’ve got some problems here on the ship and we’re heading back home. If all goes well, we should be back in lunar orbit in less than four days. I’ll keep you informed, and you let me know how things are going there.”

Dan reviewed his own message, decided there was nothing he needed to add to it, then touched the send button on the comm panel.

He started to get up from the co-pilot’s seat when the comm unit pinged.

“ ’Nother message comin’ in,” Pancho said needlessly. A young man’s face appeared on the screen. He looked annoyed. “General notice to all spacecraft and surface vehicles. A class-four solar flare has been observed by the early-warning sensors in Mercury orbit. Preliminary calculations of the interplanetary field indicate the resulting radiation storm has a ninety percent chance of reaching the Earth — Moon system within the next twelve hours. All spacecraft in cislunar space are advised to return to the nearest safe docking facility. All activities on the lunar surface will be suspended in six hours. Anyone on the surface is advised to seek shelter within six hours.” Dan sagged back into the chair.

Pancho tried to smile. “You called it, boss: Murphy’s Law.”